Straight to the sourceMissoula Independent
Letters to the Editor
Posted on Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 1:01 PM
By Jerome Walker

After reading your article "A dam dilemma" (July 11), my fiancée and I decided to hike up to the Fred Burr Dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness to see what all the fuss was about. I'm 74 years old and she's from New York, had only camped once in her life and had never backpacked, but we were powerfully curious. The first night we packed in to a campsite 7.5 miles up Fred Burr Creek. That day we saw two other backpackers, but the next two days we saw no human being and enjoyed the quiet found only in Wilderness. By lunchtime of the second day we were at the dam. We noticed straight off that the partly collapsed catwalk that Fred Burr High Lake Inc. wanted to repair by using a helicopter to bring in 682 pounds of boards, etc., was constructed from on-site trees, not from sawn lumber. The dam itself, which doesn't need repairs, was also made from on-site material. We wondered why the catwalk couldn't just be repaired using local materials again, as there were plenty of trees and deadfalls around. There was a spillway to take care of any overflow, so the judge's assertion that "leaving Fred Burr Dam un-repaired could do more damage to the Wilderness than a single helicopter" didn't make much sense either.

Hiking up to the dam we crawled over or ducked under some deadfalls, but these needed only to be cut with crosscut saws as a matter of routine trail maintenance for both horses and people to pass easily. At no point did we see switchbacks that would have been impossible for horses to negotiate, as the Forest Service maintained, and for sure there seemed no need for dynamite to "widen the trail," as they also claimed. We also observed manure all along the trail up very close to the dam itself, so clearly some horses were able to make it up there fairly recently, as we figured nobody would helicopter in manure.

Later we read Renee Morley's letter to the Independent (July 18) in which Morley agreed, as just about everybody does, that "unnecessary helicopter flights are detrimental to Wilderness and degrade the law." Then Morley reversed course and let the Forest Service off the hook due to their lack of funds to maintain trails so that horses can pass. Still later we learned that the Forest Service had spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on an Environmental Assessment required by Fred Burr High Lake Inc.'s 2010 request for use of a helicopter in Wilderness. This expenditure wouldn't have been necessary had the Forest Service simply insisted in the first place that the corporation, which owns the dam and water rights, obey the Wilderness Act. This would require either packing in repair materials or using on-site materials, as had been done in the past. More importantly, it raises the serious question of why the Forest Service is spending taxpayers' money to analyze a private company's project on its private dam?

Now the Forest Service is having to spend more of our taxpayer money to defend against litigation brought against them for failing to uphold the law. Since these funds, which Congress appropriates to the Forest Service to manage Wilderness, are being wasted, maybe that's why there's not enough money left to hire crews to maintain the hiking trails in Wilderness or to build new trails, which was not the case in the past.The Wilderness Act of 1964 (we will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year) is very clear about prohibiting any motorized equipment such as helicopters in Wilderness whatsoever except for rare life and death rescue situations. This principle is fundamental to the very concept of Wilderness, which we are lucky enough to have around us in all directions here in Missoula. Maybe the Forest Service needs to take another look at the law and spend our taxpayer money more wisely. That could go a long way towards untangling the so-called "dam dilemmas" throughout Wilderness.
Jerome Walker National Board Wilderness Watch
Missoula

Imagine you're three days into that wilderness trip you've been dreaming about all winter. Deep solitude. Over the ridge, a low-flying helicopter appears. Its sound hits you first, engine screaming, rotors thumping the air, their whop-whop-whop reverberating off mountain walls. As the chopper draws closer and begins circling, you stare eye-to-eye with a heavily armed, goggled and ear-muffled pilot.

Or, you are winter camping in the quiet solitude of the north woods, when at night a similarly loud helicopter suddenly hovers over your campsite in the snow, shining a spotlight down on you.

Welcome to America's border-patrolled wilderness in 2013.

Sound far-fetched? It's not. The first incident happened to a woman last summer in the Pasayten Wilderness along the northern border in central Washington. The second incident occurred a few winters ago in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. And unless Congress and federal land management agencies act soon to rein in the excesses of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it could become a common experience in many of our nation's premier wildernesses along our northern border with Canada.

A new analysis by our organization, Wilderness Watch, identifies 73 U.S. wildernesses in 12 states that are threatened by a variety of security measures along the northern border. The threatened areas stretch westward from Maine to Washington, and north along the entire Alaska/Canada border. They include some of America's most well-known and loved areas, as identified in our 22-page report, "Wilderness in Peril: Border Security Measures Threaten Wilderness Along the Northern Border with Canada."

"Wilderness in Peril" documents threats from a variety of sources, including legislation passed by the House of Representatives last year that would have waived 16 environmental laws, including the Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act, within 100 miles of all U.S. borders. That bill fortunately died in the Senate.

But flying under the radar, and potentially having far greater impact, are actions by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its agencies like Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Border Patrol. These agencies completed a 2012 environmental-impact statement calling for the same heavy-handed tactics along the northern border that are now used along the southern. These measures include both ground and aerial motorized patrols, and developing permanent infrastructure like border walls and surveillance towers.

Of even more immediate concern is a memorandum of understanding between DHS and the federal land management agencies that erroneously assumes that wildernesses and national parks along the northern border end 60 feet away from the international boundary, and therefore Border Patrol need not comply with protections on these lands.

If that isn't enough, under a 2005 law the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally waive any law he or she so chooses, with no prior consultation with Congress or the federal land-management agencies and with no ability for citizens to seek recourse in the courts.

Congress should never have put so much power in the hands of a single, unelected bureaucrat, and Congress must put that power back in the hands of elected officials and the public process where it belongs. Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff waived dozens of federal laws in 2008, including the 1964 Wilderness Act, to build hundreds of miles of border wall along the southern border. This construction included blasting and building one road right through the Otay Mountain Wilderness.

Wilderness Watch believes that our nation must protect our wildernesses while keeping our country safe. Our report suggests several ways to accomplish this along the northern border. First, Congress must repeal the dictatorial power of the homeland security secretary to unilaterally waive federal laws.
Second, we must correct the flaws in the 2006 agency memorandum of understanding. Next, we must revise DHS's environmental-impact statement to safeguard wilderness. Fourth, we must continue to defeat legislative efforts like last year's border bill and, finally, restore wilderness protection to the national priority it deserves and formerly enjoyed.
----------------------Kevin Proescholdt is the conservation director and George Nickas is the executive director for Wilderness Watch, a national nonprofit wilderness conservation organization.

GOP-backed bill is most serious attack on America's Wilderness Act in historyThe Wilderness Act has protected America's wild lands for 50 years. It is now under threat by a House bill deceptively called The Sportsmen's Heritage Act. Citizens must demand the US Senate do nothing to advance its devastating provisions.

Conservationists and wilderness enthusiasts across America are mobilizing to defeat a bill passed by the House of Representatives in April that would eviscerate the 1964 Wilderness Act.

Deceptively entitled the Sportsmen's Heritage Act, the bill (H.R. 4089) purports to protect hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting. The bill is being pushed by powerful groups like the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International and supported by some of the most anti-wilderness Republicans in Congress. And it would effectively gut the Wilderness Act and protections for every wilderness in America's 110-million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System – everywhere from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness along the Montana-Idaho border that I can see from my home.

The House bill's provisions could still become law during the current lame-duck session of Congress. Though the Senate is considering a different sportsmen's bill that does not include the harmful elements, the Senate bill could eventually be merged with the devastating House bill in order to pass both chambers.

The Wilderness Act eloquently defines wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." The statute further designates wilderness as an area that retains "its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation" and is "protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions."

I know the Wilderness Act. I worked alongside my mentor, Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society (the bill's chief author and proponent), from 1956-1964 to gain its passage by Congress. After Zahniser's untimely passing in 1964, I directed the Wilderness Society for the next 12 years in implementing the new law and in adding new areas to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Congress responded to requests from the American people by adding tens of millions of acres to the wilderness system. Today, that system has grown from the original 9 million acres in 1964 to nearly 110 million acres. The Wilderness Act provides the best and most protective standards of all types of federal public land protection.

But this great legacy of American Wilderness is essentially destroyed by H.R. 4089 in several key ways.

First, H.R. 4089 elevates hunting, fishing, shooting, and wildlife management above wilderness protection within designated wilderness areas. Visitors or wildlife managers could drive motor vehicles and build roads, cabins, dams, hunting blinds, aircraft landing strips, and much more in wildernesses if any of these activities could be rationalized as facilitating opportunities for hunting, fishing, shooting, or managing fish and wildlife.

The only limitation in H.R. 4089 on motor vehicles or development is that the activity must be related to hunting, fishing, shooting, or wildlife management, though that need not be its only or even primary use. In reality, almost any recreational or management activity could be shoehorned into one of these exceptions and thereby exempted from Wilderness Act safeguards.

Perhaps even more troubling, H.R. 4089 would waive protections imposed by the Wilderness Act for anything undertaken in the name of wildlife management or for providing recreational opportunities related to wildlife. This would allow endless manipulations of wildlife and habitat.

This could include logging, if done to stimulate new forest growth on which deer might graze. Similarly, bulldozing new dams and reservoirs could be validated as a way to enhance fishing habitats. Poisoning lakes and streams to kill native fish and then planting exotic fish might be allowed under the guise of increasing fishing opportunities. And predator control (including aerial gunning and poisoning) could be defended for boosting the numbers of popular hunted species like elk or bighorn sheep that predators also eat.

There is no limit to what managers could do in designated wilderness areas all in the name of wildlife management or providing opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting. These provisions strike at the heart of the Wilderness Act and its foundational underpinnings to preserve wilderness untrammeled and native wildlife in its natural environment.

Sportsmen and sportswomen – those who hunt and fish – were, and continue to be among the strongest supporters of the original wilderness law, of designating wilderness lands, and of the special quality of fishing and hunting experiences that wild and undeveloped lands provide. Many of these folks are fighting to prevent eviscerating the law and its wilderness preservation safeguards.

For nearly a half-century, the Wilderness Act has protected the finest of America's wild lands and created a National Wilderness Preservation System that is the envy of much of the world. H.R. 4089 would negate all that we have preserved. In my 60 years of work for wilderness preservation and management, our nation has never been threatened by a more serious attack on this irreplaceable publicly owned resource. Citizens must demand that the US Senate do nothing to advance the House provisions of the so-called Sportsmen's Heritage Act and instead protect our grand wilderness legacy for future generations.

Stewart Brandborg is a wildlife biologist, former executive director of the Wilderness Society, and a long-time board member of and now senior adviser to Wilderness Watch.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/1130/GOP-backed-bill-is-most-serious-attack-on-America-s-Wilderness-Act-in-historyBack to Top

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen has introduced federal legislation to effectively over-rule a federal court decision to remove the illegally constructed Green Mountain Lookout near Darrington. Larsen's actions are an unprecedented effort to strip away protections from a designated wilderness that will undoubtedly be cheered by those in Washington, D.C., who are itching to chip away at out nation's wilderness law. The court's clear and objective judgment that Larsen seeks to undo is entirely consistent with every Wilderness Act case in the 48-year history of that law. Readers can access the full ruling at http://wildernesswatch.org/issues/index.html#Lookout. The Forest Service violated several laws, culminating in the Court's judgment that the lookout should be removed and relocated outside wilderness.

Here is why the federal court ordered the lookout removed from the wilderness:

The Forest Service violated the 1964 Wilderness Act by:

1. Completely removing and then constructing a new permanent structure that detrimentally affects wilderness character. This project was not just a minor building remodel, but a completely new structure with just token siding from the original structure. This fact is shown clearly in the accompanying photographs of new building foundations, posts, beams, joists, studs, railings, decking, and rafters. Buildings and structures, of course, are prohibited in wilderness by the Wilderness Act.

2. Use of helicopters to carry out its construction plan. The Forest Service went wild in allowing more than 65 helicopter flights into the wilderness to completely remove the existing lookout and to construct a new lookout. Helicopter use in wilderness is permitted only for emergencies or for unique and limited situations when the agency has gone through a process to determine that the helicopter is the minimum tool necessary to preserve the wilderness. The Forest Service did not bother to complete this mandated analysis and used helicopters and motorized equipment in a freewheeling manner.

The Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The court found the Forest Service "egregiously erred" by not completing an environmental impact statement or environmental analysis (EA); instead the work was carried out using the Categorical Exemption (CE) process that is reserved for the most minor, non-controversial projects. The CE process allowed the Forest Service to avoid public notification and prevented public input on this significant and controversial project. Had the Forest Service prepared an EA and notified the public rather than concealing the new construction in a wilderness area, it is quite possible a lawsuit could have been avoided.

Rhetoric has been a constant problem in working with the Green Mountain issue. The Forest Service likes to use the term "repair" for the extensive work done on this structure. We feel "reconstruction" or "new construction" is decidedly more appropriate. The judge simply stated that regardless of what you call it, "(t)he Forest Service went too far."

You can make your own judgment by examining the accompanying photos. After the base collapsed in 2002, everything was removed from the site. A Park Service team brought in by the Forest Service excavated to bedrock, drilled into the bedrock for anchor pins, and poured massive concrete footings with embedded heavy steel saddles for the heavy timber legs. The summit outcrop was jack-hammered to remove rock to provide a more level base for the foundation. These photos show new material and super-sized components -- steel plates, heavy bolts, and steel wall framing -- designed to build a structure that can withstand the severe wilderness environment and illustrate man's dominance over nature.

We believe the Forest Service should move the lookout to Darrington or another accessible site near town, where it can be enjoyed by many without compromising the Wilderness Act or the Glacier Peak Wilderness. The Columbia Breaks Fire Interpretive Center in Entiat, Wash., is a fine example of this. Entiat has relocated two historical lookouts to create their center, which has become a popular tourist attraction.

At a time when the Wilderness Act is under attack by the most anti-wilderness Congress in the nearly 50 years since the law was enacted, the last thing wilderness needs is Rep. Larsen's bill setting a terrible precedent by authorizing incompatible activities in an existing wilderness. He would unwittingly be opening the floodgates to those wishing to undo the wilderness system piece by piece. Those who care about wilderness should encourage Rep. Larsen to reconsider his bill and work to move the lookout to a new location.

About the authors
Bill Lider of Lynnwood is a civil engineer. Dr. John Miles teaches at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Susan Morgan of Bellingham is a longtime wilderness activist. Bernie Smith of Portland is a retired Forest Service officer who formerly worked with the Glacier Peak Wilderness. All four are members of Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness conservation organization with members in all 50 states.Back to Top

Local view: Sulfide mining threatens BWCAWMinnesotans concerned with protecting clean water in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and in the St. Louis River watershed continue to look skeptically at proposals to develop a new kind of mining — sulfide mining — in Minnesota.

By: Kevin Proescholdt, Duluth News Tribune
April 18, 2012

Minnesotans concerned with protecting clean water in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and in the St. Louis River watershed continue to look skeptically at proposals to develop a new kind of mining — sulfide mining — in Minnesota.

Proposed sulfide mining would be unlike iron ore and taconite mining, which have operated for more than a century in the state. Because the sought-after copper, nickel and other precious metals exist in tiny proportions in sulfide-bearing ore bodies, the massive waste rock piles and disturbed surfaces will interact with snow and water to produce sulfuric acid. Nowhere in the country has a sulfide mine been developed and operated without serious, long-term pollution problems. Even the 2009 draft environmental impact statement for PolyMet Mining Company’s proposed new mine admitted that sulfuric acid will leach from its operations for up to 2,000 years.

Concerned citizens wonder whether the Minnesota Legislature will weaken environmental standards to make it easier for this new type of polluting mining operation to begin and whether the State Executive Council will approve new mineral-exploration leases of state-owned minerals that lie beneath privately owned surface lands where the private surface owners oppose giving mining companies permission to disturb their lands.

Policymakers would do well to listen to the following nationally prominent Minnesotan on this topic:
“Today when environmental problems are on everyone’s mind and it is recognized that the quality of life is deteriorating, it is incongruous that mining laws of a century ago, which gave owners of mineral rights the legal right of access for prospecting and mining irrespective of who owns the surface, could now take from us this land we have learned to love and cherish.

“The time has come for the people to speak up loudly and clearly for the preservation of the wilderness canoe country of the BWCA. They have the right to demand of their representatives in Congress and the State Legislature that prospecting and mining be prohibited, that the ancient mining laws of the frontier be repealed as outmoded and inapplicable to modern needs. Private mineral rights may have to be purchased, but not at bonanza prices, and it is well to remember that the real bonanza in a ravished environment today is the very existence of wilderness in the BWCA.

“It is also well to remember that exhaustive prospecting in the Superior National Forest outside the boundaries of the BWCA has resulted, according to reports, in less than three-quarters of one percent combined copper and nickel, hardly a bonanza in view of much higher percentages in Canada and elsewhere in the United States.

“The mining threat … must be stopped, and the only way it can be done is by such mass outrage at what is contemplated that Congress will change the mining laws and appropriate funds to buy out the private mineral rights involved.

“The issue can be won, but it will take all of the energy, intelligence and idealism that can be mustered. What happens here will determine the fate of not only the BWCA but of other wilderness areas as well. We must not fail to meet the challenge before us.”

The nationally prominent Minnesotan who wrote these words in 1970 was Sigurd F. Olson. Though the particulars of the sulfide-mining issues are somewhat different today, many of them remain eerily the same. More than four decades ago, Olson recognized the grave impacts to the BWCAW and surrounding watersheds from this new kind of mining. As Olson foresaw, however, we can protect the BWCAW and the St. Louis River watershed from the potentially devastating impacts of sulfide mining — but only if policymakers can be persuaded to protect these world-class natural resources from 2,000 years of pollution.

Let’s hope the Minnesota Legislature and the State Executive Council heed Sigurd Olson’s prophetic warning in 2012.

Kevin Proescholdt of Minneapolis is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch, a national wilderness conservation organization (wildernesswatch.org). He wrote this for the News Tribune.Back to Top

Joel Connelly’s bombastic diatribe against Judge John Coughenour’s March 27th ruling ordering the removal of the reconstructed Green Mountain Lookout in the Glacier Peak Wilderness overlooked many things, including one very important one: the U.S. Forest Service broke the law. Actually, by helicoptering out the remains of the previously reconstructed lookout, reconstructing the structure yet again off-site with more new materials, and helicoptering it back to Green Mountain for a total of 67 helicopter flights, the Forest Service had violated two bedrock environmental laws: the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires environmental review and public comment, and the 1964 Wilderness Act, the landmark law governing all Wildernesses in the nation.

At issue is the Green Mountain Lookout in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Originally built in the 1930s as a fire lookout, the Green Mountain Lookout had been reconstructed so many times that by 1977 even the Forest Service itself had ruled that it was no longer eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The agency wrote that the lookout “is associated with important historical events, but it’s a reconstruction and is not the last remaining survivor with such an association.” The State Historic Preservation Officer agreed, finding that the Green Mountain Lookout “does not meet National Register Criteria.”

Yet the Forest Service would later flip-flop on its finding. In 1986, the agency included this lookout with seven others for listing on the National Register, not because of its own historic value but as part of a “thematic group.” In 2002, the agency disassembled the deteriorated lookout and helicoptered it off-site, to be reconstructed once more using yet more new materials. Then seven years later, without following the environmental review and public notice requirements of NEPA, the Forest Service flew dozens of helicopter flights into the Wilderness bringing the components back, and reassembled the structure on a new foundation.

Clearly, the structure now is not the same lookout that existed in the 1930s. By bringing in the mostly-new structure, the Forest Service violated the Wilderness Act’s prohibitions on structures and installations. Judge Coughenour appropriately ruled that the Forest Service broke both laws, and ordered the new building removed from Green Mountain.

This ruling does NOT mean that all historic structures in Wilderness must be dismantled and removed, nor does it mean that hikers can no longer visit the Glacier Peak Wilderness, as Mr. Connelly wrote. Historic structures may remain in Wilderness; the questions surround how they are administered and what affect that administration has on the area’s wilderness character. For instance, when the Forest Service proposed to reconstruct 12 long-abandoned dams in the Emigrant Wilderness, the court ruled the reconstruction would be illegal, but didn’t order the dams removed. They were left to continue to naturally degrade while the Wilderness worked its will. Other historic structures are sometimes moved to locations outside Wilderness, where their historic significance can be preserved and interpreted for the public. The Forest Service has done this with other fire lookouts in the Wenatchee National Forest, for example. Still other historic structures in Wilderness are allowed to deteriorate, such as the lookout in the Norse Creek Wilderness, but its historic values were first carefully documented and preserved in exhibits outside Wilderness.

So Wilderness still has a place for genuinely historic structures. The new Green Mountain Lookout, however, is not one of them. Thanks to a good decision by Judge Coughenour, the refabricated lookout on Green Mountain will be removed and the wilderness character of Green Mountain will be restored in accordance with federal law.
----Kevin Proescholdt is the conservation director for Wilderness Watch, a national nonprofit wilderness conservation organization (www.wildernesswatch.org). Wilderness Watch believes, unlike Mr. Connelly’s assertions, that U.S. citizens all across the nation own and can have an interest in the protection of our federal public lands.Back to Top

'Untrammeled' does not necessarily mean 'untouched,' but it does mean a place where humans now exercise restraint.
Counterpoint

Greg Breining's Sept. 25 commentary on the Pagami Creek fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness ("Nature as human theater") calls for abandoning wilderness status for the BWCA and using "even logging equipment ... to reduce downed fuel, to clear away diseased stands, to maintain the stands of large pine that people like to see and to improve the forest for certain wildlife species."

Though I know that Breining often likes to take deliberately contrarian stands to elicit responses such as mine, his misinformed commentary nonetheless needs to be corrected.

In misunderstanding what wilderness means, Breining relies in part on an oft-debunked article by William Cronon, "The Trouble with Wilderness."

In that essay, Cronon set up a classic (and untrue) straw-man argument that went something like this: "Wilderness advocates hew to the idyllic view of wilderness espoused by nineteenth-century transcendentalists, that wilderness areas are perfectly harmonious and stable Edens untouched by and uninhabited by humans and that Native Americans never left a mark upon the land."

Cronon then knocked down this straw man and leapt to the conclusion that the idea of wilderness has little merit or meaning.

While some 19th-century transcendentalists may have held such views, none of the wilderness advocates from around the country with whom I've worked over the past 35 years has ever espoused the belief that Cronon described.

Breining and Cronon would be much better served by understanding the history of the 1964 Wilderness Act and how it has been defined and implemented in the 20th and 21st centuries. A good place to start is with the writings of Howard Zahniser.

Zahniser was the executive secretary of the Wilderness Society from the mid-1940s until his death in 1964. A deep thinker on wilderness and a careful literary craftsman, Zahniser was the one who drafted the Wilderness Bill in 1956 and most of its subsequent revisions until final passage eight years later.

In his landmark 1956 article, Zahniser described why humans need to treat wilderness areas with humility and restraint: "We deeply need the humility to know ourselves as the dependent members of a great community of life, and this can indeed be one of the spiritual benefits of a wilderness experience. ... [T]o know the wilderness is to know a profound humility, to recognize one's littleness, to sense dependence and interdependence, indebtedness and responsibility."

It was Zahniser who crafted the definition of wilderness in the Wilderness Act, the most poetic passage in all the federal statutes: "A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

As others have often done, Breining misinterprets the word "untrammeled" to mean something like "untouched" or "pristine." But the actual definition of untrammeled means uncontrolled, or unmanipulated, or unconfined.

Congress has designated as wilderness many areas that have been damaged by human activity -- including the BWCA -- but the essence of "untrammeled" means that once a wilderness area is designated, we humans exercise the humility and restraint to allow it to be as free as possible from human manipulations and human domination.

That is why the Forest Service allows some lightning-caused fires to burn in the BWCA (under certain conditions), to allow fire to play its natural role in the region's fire-dependent ecosystem.

That is why we don't go in to the BWCA with logging equipment to remove trees that blew down.

That is why we allow the wilderness, not us humans, to choose whether large pines survive or which wildlife species can flourish.

So while the Pagami Creek fire has burned far more acreage than anyone anticipated, and though the Forest Service has been appropriately working to contain and control it, this is no reason to throw the wilderness concept out the window and cheapen and ultimately lose the BWCA's wilderness character.

The BWCA has evolved with and adapted to fire for some 10,000 years, and with the appropriate humility and restraint on our part, it can remain wild and untrammeled far into the future.Back to Top

We shouldn't let degradation of the wilderness become a legacy of 9/11
by Kevin Proescholdt
September 9, 2011Minnesota Public Radio NewsCommentary

Some years ago in the fall, my canoeing buddy, BT, and I planned a rugged canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Years earlier, we had spied a remote lake on the maps, far off the normal travel routes. To reach this lake we needed to bushwhack (or to "crash," as we liked to call it) quite a distance both to reach the lake, and again to travel out another way.

BT and I started guiding canoe trips together in the BWCA back in the mid-1970s. We were both experienced canoe-country hands, and we had enjoyed many crashing trips over the years to visit remote locations not reached by sane people, and to experience the real wilds of the Boundary Waters.

On that fall trip, it took us a day and a half to reach the spot where the crashing would begin. Our first stretch was strenuous, but not too difficult. We could paddle portions of a small stream, often needing to portage around obstacles like fallen trees or rocky shallows. At one point we improvised a steep carry up a small hill and almost straight down on the other side to bypass a tangle of rocks and fallen trees. We repeated these maneuvers again and again before pushing into a small lake as evening began.

On a small island, we were visited several times at dusk by a barred owl that flew so low over us that we might have touched it if we'd stood up.

The next day would be our most challenging. We broke camp in the morning, paddled to a connected small lake and crashed overland through mostly wet muskeg bog, and finally launched our canoe into the lake we had sought. We paddled the entire shoreline, exploring. What a beautiful, remote lake! It was worth the effort to see it.

Then off we went a different way, only to find a stream impassable due to low water. So we began the long crash out, slowly portaging our canoe and gear. We climbed up a ridge at one point to avoid the thick alder brush, only to encounter more brush and deadfalls atop the high ground as well. We pushed on.
After hours of the grind, near sunset, we finally reached a lake that connected to an official portage trail. We had returned to civilized wilderness. We pushed on to the next lake, found a campsite, and collapsed in exhaustion.

After two more days in the wilderness we arrived at a motel room in town. We turned on the TV and, uncomprehendingly, saw Tom Brokaw standing in front of a pile of rubble.

While we had been in the middle of nowhere, the world had changed. The 9/11 attacks occurred on the day the barred owl soared above our heads. Coming out of the woods, we felt like Rip Van Winkle waking up from his nap.

And the world continues to change — now, ironically, in ways that may significantly harm the same Boundary Waters we had enjoyed on that Sept. 11.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress passed a series of new national security measures like the Patriot Act, some of which have seriously inhibited not only individual freedoms but environmental protection as well. A new bill by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, would waive over 30 federal laws like the Wilderness Act within 100 miles of the Canadian border so that the Department of Homeland Security could "maintain and construct roads, construct a fence, use vehicles to patrol, and set up monitoring equipment." Homeland Security would be free to do essentially whatever it wished in the BWCA, Voyageurs National Park, and everywhere else within that 100 miles.

Some may doubt that the federal government would harm the BWCA and Voyageurs. But we need only look at the terrible damage to areas along the Mexican border to see what could be in store. Massive construction to erect an enormous border wall, construction of towers and buildings, establishment of roads for Border Patrol vehicles — all this has already happened in places like the Cabeza Prieta Wilderness, Organ Pipe Cactus Wilderness and Otay Mountain Wilderness.

Let's not wake up in the future like another Rip Van Winkle only to find our BWCA and Voyageurs degraded in similar ways.
----
Kevin Proescholdt of Minneapolis has worked on issues related to the BWCA since the 1970s. He co-authored "Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness," and serves on the board of Wilderness Watch.Back to Top

Dan Joling’s Associated Press story, “Federal officials block plan to kill wolves in Alaska refuge,” (March 8) was long on exaggerated claims regarding subsistence hunting on Unimak and short on facts about Unimak and its caribou.

The article reports Alaska officials stating the decision ignores subsistence needs of Unimak residents, calling the caribou herd a “valuable subsistence resource.” This statement is at odds with the reality that subsistence hunters rarely hunt here. Subsistence studies show residents primarily hunt caribou from the Southern Alaska Peninsula Herd — more easily accessible by boat. All reported harvests of the Unimak herd since 1999 have been by non-local Alaska residents and out-of-state hunters. The vast majority of hunting is done through two commercial guide services focused on killing trophy bulls.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s environmental assessment acknowledges little is known about the cause of the herd’s decline and cites multiple possible factors — habitat and nutrition conditions, disease, climate change, predation and hunting. Several times in the past 80 years, the herd has been much smaller than now, with years when no caribou were found. This is a normal condition for caribou populations living on constricted ranges such as the southern Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent Unimak Island.

Pioneer caribou biologist and former Fairbanks resident Olaus Murie documented these fundamental principles on Unimak Island as early as 1925. Furthermore, it is known that the wolves of Unimak experience periodic rabies epidemics, which result in reduced caribou mortality.

Unimak Island is 93 percent federally designated wilderness, and as such, the USFWS is required to maintain its untrammeled, wild character. The state’s predator control plan would have violated the most fundamental principles of the Wilderness Act by allowing human intervention in the natural processes at work on Unimak. It would have set a terrible precedent for predator control on national wildlife refuges and designated wilderness elsewhere in Alaska.Back to Top

Jonathan Grass’s story, “State opposes federal decision to not take action on Unimak wolf” in the March 10 Empire, is rife with exaggerated claims the State of Alaska has made regarding subsistence hunting on Unimak while missing the facts about the island and its caribou.

The article reports Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) officials saying the decision is “harmful to subsistence needs as well as the caribou herd and the wolves,” and that locals have “few red meat alternatives.” Such statements are at odds with reality. Subsistence hunters don’t hunt here as subsistence studies show residents primarily hunt caribou from the Southern Alaska Peninsula herd, which is more easily accessible by boat. All reported harvest of the Unimak herd since 1999 has been by non-local Alaska residents and out-of-staters. The vast majority of hunting is done through two commercial guide services focused on killing trophy bulls. Tellingly, the only False Pass resident who commented during the EA stakeholder meeting asked FWS to adopt the “No Action” alternative.

The article quotes Board of Game Chairman Cliff Judkins saying, “ANILCA requires the federal government to consider subsistence use as the highest priority.” This statement is ambiguous at best. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) does give subsistence use priority over all other uses (e.g. trophy hunting), but merely grants the opportunity for subsistence use only when and where it’s consistent with other refuge purposes. One of those purposes is conserving fish and wildlife populations in their natural diversity. So in a case such as Unimak where a wildlife population reaches a level where hunting can’t be sustained, ANILCA requires that natural diversity be maintained over subsistence (and other) use.

The Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has made the right decision in saying no to this predator control plan. The agency’s Environmental Assessment acknowledges little is known about the cause of the herd’s decline and cites multiple possible factors—habitat and nutrition conditions, disease, climate change, predation, and hunting. Several times in the past 80 years the herd has been much smaller than now, with years when no caribou were found. This is a normal condition for caribou populations living on constricted ranges such as the southern Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent Unimak Island. Pioneer caribou biologist and former Fairbanks resident, Olaus Murie documented these fundamental principles on Unimak Island as early as 1925. Furthermore, it is known that the wolves of Unimak experience periodic rabies epidemics, which result in reduced caribou mortality.

Unimak Island is 93 percent federally-designated Wilderness, and as such, the FWS is required to maintain its untrammeled, wild character. This predator control plan would have violated the most fundamental principles of the Wilderness Act by allowing human intervention of the natural processes at work in the Unimak. And, it would have set a terrible precedent for predator control on National Wildlife Refuges and designated Wilderness elsewhere in Alaska.

• Mauer is a retired wildlife biologist and currently chair of the Alaska Chapter of Wilderness Watch. She lives in Fairbanks.Back to Top

The article reports Alaska officials saying the decision ignores subsistence needs of Unimak residents. This statement is at odds with the reality that subsistence hunters rarely hunt here. Studies show residents primarily hunt on the mainland. All reported harvest on Unimak since 1999 has been by non-local Alaskans and nonresidents. Most hunting is through commercial guide services targeting trophy bulls.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's Environmental Assessment acknowledges little is known about why the herd declined. Several times in the past 80 years it has been much smaller than now, with years when no caribou were found.

Unimak Island is 93 percent federally designated wilderness, and as such, the FWS is required to maintain its untrammeled, wild character. This predator control plan would have violated the Wilderness Act's most fundamental principles by allowing intervention in the natural processes at work on Unimak.

The Herald recently reported on Wilderness Watch’s lawsuit challenging the U.S. Forest Service for building a new structure on Green Mountain in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Here’s why wilderness advocates believe the litigation was necessary and why it will succeed.

The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as “an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” The act also states, “there shall be … no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft … and no structure or installation” within wilderness.

By building this new structure on Green Mountain and using helicopters to transport materials and workers to the site, the Forest Service’s actions have violated these fundamental tenets of wilderness law. By failing to notify the public of its plans or conduct any environmental review of the project, the Forest Service also violated the bedrock requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

It is because of these violations of law and the need to restore the wilderness character of the Glacier Peak Wilderness that Wilderness Watch has taken the Forest Service to court.

The Herald article quoted some supporters of the structure who suggested since the new building looks like the old one, it preserves the history of Green Mountain and the Forest Service should be allowed to reconstruct or replace it. This reasoning echoes those who wanted to reconstruct “historic” dams in the Emigrant Wilderness in the High Sierra, who supported replacing historic trail shelters with replica pre-fabs in the Olympic Wilderness, and who sought to continue vehicle tours to view historic structures on the eastern seaboard’s Cumberland Island Wilderness.

Everybody has a reason for giving his or her particular interest precedence over the law and the restrictions imposed on others. But the Wilderness Act and its founders got it right. In the face of “increasing populations accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization” spread across the whole of North America, the Wilderness Act separates out extraordinary places like the Glacier Peak Wilderness, where future generations can experience wild, unsettled and undeveloped lands.

The Forest Service argues that the lookout is used “to manage the wilderness and make sure that no one is committing violations of the wilderness act,” when in fact it’s the agency that has violated the law.

The proper thing for the agency to do is take down the structure unlawfully built in the wilderness and use it to replace one of the dozens of other lookouts outside wilderness areas and in need of repair. The structure can be enjoyed and the wilderness preserved.

In overturning the Park Service’s 2003 decision to replace two collapsed historic trail shelters in the Olympic Wilderness, federal Judge Franklin Burgess wrote, “Once the Olympic Wilderness was designated, a different perspective on the land is required. … The (shelters) have collapsed under the natural effects of weather and time, and to reconstruct the shelters and place the replicas on the sites of the original shelters by means of a helicopter is in direct contradiction of the mandate to preserve the wilderness character of the Olympic Wilderness.”

He added that, rather than providing shelters, “a different ‘feeling’ of wilderness is sought to be preserved for future generations to enjoy, a place ‘where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man’ and which retains ‘its primitive character and influence, without permanent improvements.’”

It is this perspective — a commitment to both the spirit and the letter of the Wilderness Act — that Wilderness Watch’s lawsuit seeks to uphold.

George Nickas is the executive director of Wilderness Watch, a national organization dedicated to the protection of the lands and waters in the National Wilderness Preservation System. www.wildernesswatch.orgBack to Top

[WW Op-ed] New Green Mtn. “Lookout” has no place in Wilderness
By George Nickas, MissoulaSeattle Post Intelligencer (also published in the Ledger-Dispatch, in response to a reprint of Joel Connelly's article)
Submitted on January 25, 2011

Seattle PI readers may be scratching their heads over Joel Connelly’s one-sided missive against Wilderness Watch’s (WW) lawsuit challenging the Forest Service (FS) for building a new structure on Green Mountain in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Here’s why wilderness advocates believe the litigation was necessary and why it will succeed.

The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as “an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” The Act also states, “there shall be…no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft…and no structure or installation” within Wilderness.

By building this new structure on Green Mountain and using helicopters to transport materials and workers to the site, the Forest Service’s actions have violated these fundamental tenets of Wilderness law. By failing to notify the public of its plans or conduct any environmental review of the project, the Forest Service also violated the bedrock requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

It is because of these violations of law and the need to restore the wilderness character of the Glacier Peak Wilderness that Wilderness Watch has taken the Forest Service to court.

Connelly argues that since the original lookout pre-dated Wilderness designation the Forest Service should be allowed to reconstruct or replace it. His reasoning echoes those who wanted to reconstruct “historic” dams in the Emigrant Wilderness in the High Sierra, who supported replacing historic trail shelters with replica pre-fabs in the Olympic Wilderness, and who sought to continue vehicle tours to view historic structures on the eastern seaboard’s Cumberland Island Wilderness. Everybody has a reason for giving his or her particular interest precedence over the law and the restrictions imposed on others. But the Wilderness Act and its founding mothers and fathers got it right. In the face of “increasing populations accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization” spread across the whole of North America, the Wilderness Act separates out extraordinary places like the Glacier Peak Wilderness where future generations can experience wild, unsettled lands.

In overturning the Park Service’s 2003 decision to replace two collapsed historic trail shelters in the Olympic Wilderness, federal judge Franklin Burgess wrote, “Once the Olympic Wilderness was designated, a different perspective on the land is required…The [shelters] have collapsed under the natural effects of weather and time, and to reconstruct the shelters and place the replicas on the sites of the original shelters by means of a helicopter is in direct contradiction of the mandate to preserve the wilderness character of the Olympic Wilderness.” He added, rather than providing shelters, “a different ‘feeling’ of wilderness is sought to be preserved for future generations to enjoy, a place ‘where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man’ and which retains ‘its primitive character and influence, without permanent improvements.’”

It is this perspective—a commitment to both the spirit and the letter of the Wilderness Act—that Wilderness Watch’s lawsuit seeks to uphold.

George Nickas is the executive director of Wilderness Watch, a national organization dedicated to the protection of the lands and waters in the National Wilderness Preservation System. www.wildernesswatch.orgBack to Top

[WW Op-ed] Forest Service buckled under pressure to allow IPTV to filmIdaho StatesmanDawn SerraJune 4, 2010
The Forest Service initially made the right decision in denying Idaho Public Television's request to film a trail maintenance project in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

It might have gone a step further by suggesting an alternative location where IPTV could obtain the desired footage, thereby avoiding much of the controversy that has ensued.

The Wilderness Act prohibits commercial enterprise, including commercial filming, in these special places, and it's the responsibility of the Forest Service to implement the laws that Congress passes.
Unfortunately, after receiving pressure from Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and Congressman Mike Simpson, Regional Forester Harv Forsgren reversed the decision of local forest officials and permitted the filming to start immediately.

Many of the commentaries critical of the Forest Service's original decision are based on the mistaken notion that IPTV's "nonprofit" status under the Internal Revenue Code makes its activities inherently noncommercial. That represents a misunderstanding of what "nonprofit" status means.
Courts have routinely held that private, nonprofit corporations can engage in commercial activities, and many do, including public television stations. These stations use their programming to obtain advertisers ("corporate sponsors"), not unlike the network and cable channels do, and to solicit contributions from their viewers.

Others have suggested that IPTV's record of pro-environment programming justifies ignoring the Wilderness Act and giving the station a filming permit.

However, the content of the message has no relevance in determining whether the activity is commercial, nor is content-based speech regulation an appropriate role for land managers in the Forest Service. One person's "educational video" is another's "fundraising tool."

I'm sure there will be more than a few Hollywood directors willing to put wilderness on the big screen for the educational benefit of us all.

The Wilderness Act bars commercial enterprise, including filming, because the act's framers saw the benefit, indeed the need, to protect wilderness from being viewed and used as a commodity, and from having its management compromised by economic interests. Upholding this aspect of the law may not always be politically popular, but it's the job of the federal land management agencies to make sure they uphold the law.

When public officials put private interests above those of the people, they erode the public's faith in government and its ability to carry out its responsibilities under the law.

There was a simple solution that met the needs of the television station without compromising the protections afforded wilderness. IPTV could have done its filming on another trail project in the backcountry, but outside the wilderness.

This would be a "win-win" solution that provided the desired film footage without compromising the Wilderness Act or the ethics of the agency responsible for managing the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

Two controversial water tanks placed in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to help the refuge's troubled bighorn sheep aren't working as promised, environmentalists said this week.

After reviewing more than 4,000 photographic images from the tanks, the groups said that they saw no pictures of bighorns drinking at either tank and only one scene of a bighorn walking near a tank. They saw mule deer, hawks, coyotes, vultures, doves and bobcats aplenty, they said.

That led the groups to conclude that the tanks, 13,000 gallons each, were placed in the refuge by state and federal officials as a ruse — ostensibly aimed at bighorns but in reality targeting mule deer because of their attraction to hunters. A conclusion supported by the placement of the tanks in flat, open habitat better suited for the deer than the more secretive bighorns that prefer rockier cliffs and ridges for shelter, the environmentalists said.

"Based on my experience, I would never have selected either site as a location for a bighorn watering hole," said Ron Kearns, a former Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in the Kofa now representing Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "The areas lack nearby high relief escape terrain that is critical to bighorn for predator avoidance. Both sites are ideal for mule deer water use and exceptionally marginal for bighorn use."

State and federal officials, however, say it's too soon to write these tanks off as failures. That's partly because rainfall there has been average since their installation two years ago.

The tanks were put in a wilderness area inside the refuge, which has prompted a lawsuit from the environmental groups in federal court. The suit is seeking removal of the human-built structures from wilderness. A U.S. District Judge in Phoenix upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's installation in a ruling last year. The decision is under appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The recent average rainfall brought "very good range" conditions and decent natural water for wildlife, the State Game and Fish Department said in a statement. They were built at a cost of about $40,000 total.

"The real need for the new water developments will be during drought years," the department said.

"Department biologists expect to see significant use on both of the water systems during the next extended drought period. Drought is normal in a desert environment but it can't be predicted when it will occur next. Water developments are insurance policies that limit or mitigate some of the negative impacts of drought."

Game and Fish also said that they got a report of one shot of a bighorn using a tank last June 11 — contrary to the environmental groups' statement. That was the same day that the environmentalists said the shot of a bighorn walking by the tank was taken.

The conflict over tanks is one of two skirmishes in the Kofa over the refuge's renowned sheep herd. The population was about 800 in 2000, dropped to 620 in 2003, then crashed to 390 in 2006 before rebounding slightly over the next two years. State and federal governments have drawn fierce environmentalist opposition to efforts to shoot mountain lions known to be killing bighorns.

In this case, the issue has been human intrusion into the Kofa Wilderness, an area covering more than 500,000 acres of the 665,400-acre refuge that drew federal wilderness designation back in 1990. When the tanks were built, state and federal officials hailed them as a tonic for drought conditions that they blamed along with lions for the sheep population crash.

While drought has been a normal part of the Kofa's ecosystem for hundreds if not thousands of years, this has exceeded any past known drought by several years, the department said on its Web site. The drought slashes the amount, palatability and diversity of plants the sheep eat, the department said.
When McPherson tank was built, Game and Fish predicted that about 90 percent of its use would be by bighorns. Game and Fish also has said that, "Bighorn sheep were using Yaqui Tank within days of its installation."

Instead, today, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit, Wilderness Watch, says that building the water developments was an effort to artificially inflate bighorn numbers. The Sierra Club and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have also been involved in the legal struggle over these tanks.

"Bighorns have evolved there for thousands of years," said George Nickas, Wilderness Watch's executive director. "In wilderness we let nature take its course, to determine which species are there in what numbers. The Wilderness Act's goal is an area untrammeled, uncontrolled and unmanipulated by humans."

Fish and Wildlife official Mitch Ellis said that officials will need five to 10 years to judge if the tanks are effective.

"Some species are able to use the waters quicker. There's a lot of factors that can affect the level of wildlife use of these tanks," said Ellis, manager of a complex of Southwestern Arizona refuges including Kofa.

Game and Fish's biologists still believe that bighorns will benefit more from these tanks in the long run, the department's statement said. John Hervert, a department biologist, spotted evidence of bighorn use of the Yaqui tank — several sets of bighorn tracks in the dirt around the trough shortly after construction, the department said.

Contrary to Kearns' assertion, the water tanks are located in good bighorn habitat at the foot of mountains, with McPherson located inside a complex of mountains, with a large wash system running into the Kofa Valley, Hervert said.

Montana's place in the "Big W"
by Alex SakariassenMissoula Independent9/17/09

As debate over Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act continues, acclaimed environmental author Rod Nash–set to speak on the definition of wilderness in Hamilton Sept. 19–sits more or less in the bleachers, not fully engaged in the discussion. Yet he offers helpful insight on Montana's place in the broader context of "Big W."

"Wilderness and national parks aren't about beauty in the sense that a garden is or a park is," Nash says from his home in Crested Butte, Colo., which he's quick to mention lies within eight miles of five wilderness areas. "They're about wildness, they're about self-willed places and self-willed processes and species that should be left alone by human beings out of the interest of sharing the planet with other inhabitants of spaceship Earth."

Nash's credentials lend him a certain authority on matters of the wild. Outside magazine hailed his 1967 book Wilderness and the American Mind as one of the "ten books that changed our world." The avid outdoorsman is also an active member of the advisory board for nonprofit Wilderness Watch.
While avoiding specifics, Nash did speak generally about the Tester bill, mentioning the historic weight of vague and misleading language. Sloppy phrasing, Nash says, can undermine the proposal's goals.
"If language creates some loopholes that people think permit them to go in and do some things in [wilderness], it violates the basic concept of wilderness, which is to leave the land self-willed," Nash says.

As for logging mandates requiring the harvest of 70,000 designated acres over a decade, Nash says such language is "rare" in wilderness legislation, especially if drafters seek to "toe the line" from the 1964 Wilderness Act.

As the debate continues, Nash boils his advice for Montana's wilderness legislation down to one word: restraint.

"Have the courage to say that there should be places in Montana that are not about us, that are not about our economy, that are not about our recreation, that are not about our pleasure, that are not about our scenic values," he says. "Have the courage to back off and let some parts of the wild world be unmodified and do their own thing."Back to Top

Wilderness history expert to speak
by JOHN CRAMER - Ravalli Republic
9/17/09

Environmental historian Rod Nash will mark the Wilderness Act’s 45th anniversary with a public talk Saturday in Hamilton about the benefits of preserving America’s wild places.

The milestone comes as the landmark environmental law faces continued pressure from legislators, motorized recreationists and others who seek to weaken safeguards for some of the nation’s most pristine areas, said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, which is sponsoring Nash’s talk.

“The wilderness system is in serious trouble” because of efforts to chip away at protections and because federal agency leaders have failed to fully monitor wilderness areas and enforce existing rules, Nickas said.

Nash’s lecture, titled “The Meaning of Wilderness and the Rights of Nature,” is slated for 7 p.m. at Hamilton City Hall. The event is free.

Nash, author of “Wilderness and the American Mind,” is considered a national leader in wilderness history, management and education.

“He’s one of America’s foremost scholars on wilderness and conservation issues,” said Dawn Serra, communications and outreach coordinator for Wilderness Watch.

The Missoula-based national nonprofit group, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, works to protect lands and waters in the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Nash, who helped to create the modern conservation movement in the United States in the 1960s, is retired from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He lives in Colorado.

Both a wilderness scholar and explorer, Nash advocates for the preservation and management of wilderness areas.

“He understands what wilderness is and what the wilderness system means from the perspective of an educator and historian but also from his personal experience as a river guide and adventurer,” Serra said.

His book “Wilderness and the American Mind” explores the cultural history of America’s relationship with wilderness.

“It’s a seminal book on how Americans’ attitudes and ethics about wilderness have evolved over the years,” Serra said. “It’s considered the Bible on American wilderness and what it means today.”

Early settlers regarded the wilderness as a place to be feared, civilized and exploited, but by the 1890s as the frontier disappeared, more Americans came to regard their forests, mountains, rivers and deserts as a sanctuary from the industrial revolution’s crowded cities.

“We always thought of growth as synonymous with progress, but maybe bigger is not better if it creates a civilization that is unsustainable,” Nash said in a news release.

The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968.

The National Wilderness Preservation System started with nine million acres and now numbers nearly 110 million acres.

There are 756 wilderness areas in all but six states, with 3.4 million acres in 15 Montana wilderness areas.

Nickas said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would weaken wilderness protections by allowing harmful special provisions for management of wildlife, habitat, wildfire, livestock and military training, including the use of motorized vehicles.

“Tester’s bill and other bills have sloppy and overzealous language that takes these roadless areas that should be designated as wilderness and allocates them to anti-wilderness groups,” Nickas said.

He said top officials at the federal agencies charged with administering wilderness areas - the Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management - haven’t created a systematic way to monitor the lands and waters in the program.

Major threats to wilderness also come from overuse by recreationists, noxious weeds, motor vehicles and motorized equipment, Nickas said.

Wilderness Watch supports the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which would designate as wilderness 24 million acres in the Northern Rockies.

The group opposes the Forest Service’s proposal to use a helicopter to remove the wreckage of an airplane that crashed in the 1930s in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

The group also wants the Forest Service to remove rather than perform maintenance on the Fish Lake Dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

More information is available from www.wildernesswatch.org.

Reporter John Cramer can be reached at 363-3300 or jcramer@ravallirepublic.com.Back to Top

War of words Tester bill may rewrite the book on wildernessMissoula IndependentSeptember 3, 2009
by Skylar Browning

Sen. Jon Tester's 84-page Forest Jobs and Recreation Act doesn't exactly make for scintillating summer reading. But environmental groups who have pored over the proposal warn that its "incredibly sloppy" language may set a dangerous precedent for what's permissible in wilderness areas, and federal employees have confirmed that some provisions read unlike anything they've ever seen before—and not necessarily in a good way. The concern is that the bill, as currently written, will change the very definition of wilderness.

"Once these provisions get into wilderness bills, they often get replicated in future bills," says George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, a Missoula-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting federal wilderness. "You see that in Tester's bill, where he's included provisions that have shown up in other recent bills. All these bills are now becoming a race to the bottom. They never put in any provisions that strengthen wilderness protections. Each one seems to be allowing more and more nonconforming activities so that wilderness becomes less unique, less protected and less special."

The most glaring example in Tester's bill allows military helicopters to land inside the Highlands, a portion of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest slated for wilderness designation. Tester included the provision in order to honor an existing agreement with Peak Enterprises, a private company in Butte that drops soldiers in the area as part of a mountain warfare training exercise three-to-four times per year.

Allison Stewart, national press officer for the U.S. Forest Service, incorrectly told the Independent three weeks ago that similar provisions existed in other wilderness areas throughout the country. The Independent found no such examples.

"I misspoke," says Stewart. "I was thinking of low-level overflights. I am not aware of any landings, and I do not believe there is any legislation that authorizes it."

Stewart's misunderstanding is indicative of how subtle wording in the bill may cause confusion. Low-level overflights, or military aircraft using airspace above wilderness, are commonly allowed in wilderness bills. But landings inside a designated wilderness area would be a first.

"Forget about the legality or the illegality or the conflict with the original Wilderness Act," says Nickas. "It's really hard for me to envision anything that's more contrary to the idea of wilderness, to these sacred places where nature is in charge, than overlaying military training in these places."

Aaron Murphy, a spokesperson for Tester, says the senator's aware that no other bill allows for military landings, but stresses that the training exercises are infrequent. He adds the provision is an example of Tester's willingness to work with all Montanans to craft the proposal.

"Jon wrote this bill because he—like many Montanans—knows that the old way of managing our forests isn't working," says Murphy. "He knows that in order for good forest policy legislation to move forward, it needs to be created from the bottom up."

Good policy or not, the Forest Service still expressed surprise with how Tester's bill addressed typically boilerplate wilderness provisions. In a portion of the bill covering the proposed Snowcrest Wilderness Area, one passage allows specifically for "historical motorized access to trail sheep."

"I'm not familiar with that specific term," says Terry Knupp, a Washington, D.C.-based wilderness program manager with the Forest Service, when asked whether she's heard of "historical motorized access to trail sheep" before. "There are several pieces of legislation that have some accommodation for historical grazing practices in them, but it's typically listed in a general way. What you're asking me, I'm not sure what that means, as written. I've never heard of something like that before."

Krupp goes on to explain that most legislation references detailed guidelines on grazing practices provided in a 1990 House report. Those guidelines read, in part, "Where practical alternatives do not exist, maintenance or other activities may be accomplished through the occasional use of motorized equipment..."

Critics believe Tester's Snowcrest section doesn't account for "practical alternatives" and, when it broadly preserves motorized access "for other ranching activities," it opens the door to more than just "occasional use."

"What does that mean?" asks Nickas. "Does that mean a rancher could come along and say that he's been driving all over hell just to count his cows and listen to them bawl? The point is, it's not specific."

Tester's office admits the language is "unique," but says the bill simply reinforces the continuation of grazing in the Snowcrest and adapts "to Montana's historic needs."

"Jon is not concerned about this provision being expanded beyond sheep trailing," says Murphy.

That's little consolation for those worried about some of the bill's squishy language. With Tester touting the bill as "a model for the West," as he recently told the Helena Independent Record, precise wording becomes a priority.

"One of the problems with the bill, in general, is that it's incredibly sloppy," says Nickas. "Having been involved in a lot of litigation and appeals and other things involving the Wilderness Act, words matter. Language matters a lot. The sloppy language in Tester's bill is really problematic in a lot of places."

Tester's office does concede that there is still time to make changes. Murphy calls the bill a "work in progress" and that amendments can be made.

"Many legal experts have reviewed the bill," he says, "and have the best intentions to make this language uniquely fit Montana."

The question remains whether the bill fits the traditional definition of congressionally designated wilderness.Back to Top

A controversy is brewing over a Forest Service proposal to remove an unsafe and unnecessary bridge in New Hampshire's 45,000-acre Pemigewasset Wilderness. White Mountain National Forest's (WMNF) Pemigewasset Wilderness Bridge Removal Project seeks to address public safety concerns and at the same time, enhance the wilderness character in the Pemigewasset. The proposal to remove, rather than replace, the deteriorating bridge shows a commitment by the WMNF to uphold the intent of the Wilderness Act, our country's most visionary land protection law. As a nationwide citizens' organization working for proper wilderness stewardship and protection, we wish to share our view that the Forest Service is doing the right thing for Wilderness and acting in accordance with the law.

WMNF managers and engineers determined last year that the 180-foot suspension bridge crossing the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River is deteriorated to the point of causing concern for public safety. The wooden rails and decking of the nearly 50-year-old bridge have rotted enough to make the bridge unsafe for crossing. The structure lies within the Pemigewasset Wilderness and predates the wilderness designation established through the 1984 New Hampshire Wilderness Act.

The proposal includes closing and rehabilitating a 0.7-mile stretch of the Wilderness Trail that accesses the suspension bridge, connecting it with a steel I-beam bridge over Black Brook, also to be removed. WMNF plans to remove the two bridges using hand tools and other non-motorized, non-mechanized means, in compliance with the Wilderness Act.

WMNF, by proposing bridge removal rather than replacement, is upholding the ideals of the Wilderness Act, which generally prohibits structures and installations in Wilderness. The Act does seek to provide primitive recreation opportunities as an important wilderness value, but only in a manner and to an extent that protects and preserves the area's wilderness character. Removing this man-made structure will enhance the Pemigewasset's wilderness character by returning the area to a more natural state and will offer more primitive recreation opportunities, where visitors can experience nature on her own terms.

While there may be some controversy over removing this bridge, which will eliminate some loop hikes and make some trips longer, the Forest Service is doing the right thing for the public and for Wilderness. The Wilderness Act defines Wilderness as areas "…where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man ... retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation... which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions... " Removing this bridge will make the Pemigewasset a little wilder, as its wilderness designation intended it to be.

We encourage visitors to the Pemigewasset Wilderness and citizens throughout the area to lend support to the Forest Service's efforts to enhance this unique area. Send your comments by letter: Pemigewasset Ranger District, ATT.: John Marunowski, 1171 Rte 175, Holderness NH 03245, or by fax: (603) 536-5147, ATT.: John Marunowski, or by e-mail: jmarunowskifs.fed.us

Dawn Serra is outreach coordinator for Wilderness Watch, based in Missoula, Mont.Back to Top